Release Tournament. When Brian (my Two-Headed Giant partner and all around dork pal) and I got to the store with 15 minutes left during the sign up time, there were all of four people in the store that didn’t work there. One of them was waiting for the Pokemon tournament. But eventually, 26 people showed up for the tournament. It was announced that there would be five rounds of Swiss with a cut to single elimination for the Top 4. Van (the guy what runs the store) announced that he would be giving out a tournament pack and three boosters, as opposed to the two boosters that would be the usual at this tournament. He then handed out the promotional Sudden Shock

After lots and LOTS of poring over the cards, I decided to go with evasion. Green had some fatties, but nothing to really punch through defenses. Red was just sub-par. I decided on Blue and White with a splash of Black for the removal. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this allowed me to use most of my rares and the good timeshifted cards. Pretty cool, huh?

After counting up the cards in the deck, I had something like 44. Sadly, that was before I added land. So I started whittling. I knocked out the 2 Foriysian Interceptor

Eventually, I decided that the Blue-White was good enough on its own, and out came the Black splash. The final deck ended up looking like this. I know it’s still not down to 40 cards, but I couldn’t come up with anything else to take out without potentially weakening the deck.

and the Outrider en-Kor have Flanking, which makes them harder to block. The Outrider even has the en-Kor ability that makes him even harder to kill. Then there’s Ith, who can actually tap to untap himself and remove himself from combat. And trust me on this, that’s a really neat trick. So I have no vanilla creatures, lots of evasion creatures, and even a few bounce spells and a Cancel

Round 1: Robert - UGRobert is the Dad half of a Father-Son Two-Headed Giant team that I had played against once before. He was a really nice guy, but I swear he had no short-term memory. He had to read every card in his hand every turn, he forgot how some spells and rules worked several turns in a row, and he could never remember how his Clockwork Hydra

worked. In short, the first game took roughly 35 minutes of the allotted 50. This was after waiting 5 for him to get started. He slapped a Fool’s Demise on his Hydra, and I stupidly blocked it with my Tivadar, allowing him to get 3 counters back on it. His Paradise Plume

. His Hydra represented lethal damage, but I could bounce it once he declared his attack step. I rolled with everything I had, giving me one more turn to win. When he declared his attack, I cast Snapback

on the Hydra. He looked at his hand and said “Oh good.” He then proceeded to cast, of all freakin’ things, AVOID FATE. He countered my bounce, and beat for the win. That would be my last major play mistake in this tournament.

, so we backed that up and Ith resolved. Sometime during the game, time was called and the 5 turns started. Using my many many evasion creatures and Ith, I manage to pull a victory out on the 5th turn. Because of his incredibly slow playing, we drew the round. Later in the tournament, he would go on to agitate some more serious tourney players enough to call for a judge. It annoyed me, but I never did anything about it because he actually wasn’t stalling. He genuinely needed all that time to keep track of what was going on.

Record: 0-0-1

Round 2: Kid, can’t remember his name - WGDuring deck construction, it was clear that this kid had never done a Sealed event before. This was because he said “Hey, I’ve never done this before” Deduction at its finest, yes? I knew he had opened an Akroma, so he was playing White, even though he didn’t see what the big deal was about her. He honestly didn’t get the whole Sealed deck thing. He was complaining that he couldn’t build a stable, tuned deck from these few cards. Well duh. Anyway. Game one was all Slivers, all the time. The Shadow Sliver

, claiming that his creatures got +2/+2 until end of turn. After I pointed out that it was either power or toughness, not both, he decided to give them +2/+0 for the turn. Then my shadow creatures marched right past his pumped defenders like they had for the last few turns, and I was puzzled. His entire deck was built to play Akroma, but he didn’t have the ability to stall until he hit 8 mana, he didn’t have any acceleration, and he didn’t have a reanimation strategy. All in all, I felt a little sorry for wailing on the kid like I did, but I was playing to win for a change.

Record: 1-0-1

Round 3: John - UGJohn is the Son half of the Father-Son 2HG team mentioned above. His Fledgling Mawcor

IFJhcHRvcnM= would get burnt out by the Kavu if I attacked with them, so I held them back. His Kavu ended up staying on the board since I had caught onto his plan. The only really interesting thing that happened was sacrificing my Spiketail Drake

. I played Tivadar the next turn, and he let the Shambler die. It was then that he realized that Tivadar could be a problem, since the Protection from Red kept him safe from a large chunk of his deck. He played Gorgon Recluse

, and whatever else he had that wasn’t defensive. I used Ith to block the Negator and remove the Sliver from combat, and used a few ground blockers to soak up most of everything. Being at 5 life, he sacrificed the Sliver to the Negator to keep from taking the fatal point of damage next turn. I turned the overlooked Thunder Totem

into a creature and attacked for the win. He had been so intent on either killing me or not dying that he missed the Totem, but since he had no answer for it, I don’t think it mattered all that much. He just thought he had one more turn than he actually did.

Since I wasn’t taking notes, I really can’t explain just how close this game was the ENTIRE TIME. If I hadn’t used the Eddy on the Syphon-Mage when I did, I would have died. If he had used it one more time earlier in the game, I would have died. If he hadn’t let slip that he had a Sliver-related trick, I would have played both Slivers and taken a total of 2 more damage from the Plague Sliver

, which would have made the game EVEN CLOSER. It was an amazingly awesome game that came down to the wire, which is what should happen when partners have to play against each other.

Record: 3-0-1

Round 5: Jonathan – G and somethingWe realized that by splitting we’d both make the top 4 cut. So we pulled an ID and I went to grab food for the Brian and myself while he contended with my round 3 opponent. I end up 3rd in the overall standings, and I’m amazed at how well I’m doing.

Record: 3-0-2

Top 4 Semifinals: Dustin – BR

Dustin was a really nice guy that I had played against at some point before. In the first game, he got a little mana screwed. My Shadow Sliver

and assorted other coolness. Second place gets 18 packs. A split gets us both 24 packs. Van (again, the guy what runs the store) comes over to ask us if we’re going to play. My opponent asks what the other options are. We explain the pack situation, and he says “Hey cool, if we split then we can get out of here sooner!” We agree to split the packs. Van stops us. He has an ultra-cool (not really) Coldsnap Life Counter that first place was going to get. Brian says we should roll dice for it. I ask Jonathan if he wants to play one game for the fate of the Life Counter. He agrees, and the game is on! The stakes are high!

on the Paladin. He plays a Jedit’s Dragoons to gain some life back, saying that this creature is slightly more bounce-resistant than the Paladin was. Then he replays his Paladin, again naming blue. I use Temporal Eddy

on it, proving that bounce just isn’t good for it. The next turn he finally succumbs to my shadow rush. I walk away with the grand prize, the Coldsnap Life Counter! All tremble before the grandeur of my Coldsnap Life Counter! Look on it and despair!

foil promo, two Marit Lage tokens that were left over from the Coldsnap Release tournament, an undefeated record, and one heck of a good mood. Life is peachy indeed! Thanks for reading about my only really successful solo tournament!

Here are some quick notes on how I actually played my deck. Whether I won the die roll or not, I always chose to draw first. Since most of my opponents wanted to play first, that helped quite a bit. I often kept hands of 4 or 5 lands, because I knew that meant I would most likely draw more business spells and less land when it really counted. If I had one land in hand, I automatically mulliganed. If I had two lands and at least two spells I could play with them, I kept it. I always played the creature with higher power first when given the chance. If I had the option of the first turn Drifter or first turn suspended Ivory Giant

, I went with the Drifter. If I had the choice of a second turn creature or second turn Ith suspension, I went with Ith if my opponent hadn’t played a creature yet, and I went with the creature if they had. I tried to play the creature that would have the most impact first. Against Saps or weenies, I played the Zealot il-Vec before the Looter il-Kor. Also depending on board situation, I would play Thunder Totem

before I would suspend the Deep-Sea Kraken, but that only happened once I think. The Kraken really messed with my opponents. It was great for several reasons. My opponents chose one of two options when faced with a suspended Kraken. They would stop playing spells unless absolutely necessary, which allowed my evasion creatures to nip at their life total over the course of several turns. Or they would hold onto some form of removal and wait for the Kraken, which also allowed my creatures to continue their attack unabated. With only one hard counter and three bounce spells, I had to be extra careful in choosing what to target. The Temporal Eddy

had to be held for swingy spells, like creature removal or something big and scary.

But that’s not all! I wanted to give a quick idea of everything that I saw at the tournament that was just completely awesome, except for bomb rares and timeshifts and the obvious awesomeness of removal. Havenwood Wurm

is just wrong. By the end of the night, Brian had decided that he really wanted to destroy one copy (at least) before he would feel better. I mean literally destroy, like rip into little pieces. The Scarwood Treefolk